“No, I mean…oh my God. I can’t believe I’m going to say this…” Bounce, bounce, bounce. “I didn’t like Jessica either.”
“Okay…”
His eyes bore into me so intensely, pleading with me to understand what he was trying to tell me, and…oh. Wow. No way.
“Are you saying you don’t like girls at all?” He’d already had sex twice, and I’d never even kissed anyone.
Isaac hesitated…then nodded.
“You’re gay?”
He sat up straight, head high, mask firmly in place, trying to pretend he wasn’t nervous, that he wasn’t afraid of how I would react. “Yeah.”
“Shit, man. I don’t care about that. Did you think I would?” I was shocked. Yeah, if I hadn’t been sitting, someone could have knocked me over with their pinky finger, but I didn’t care.
Isaac breathed out a sigh of relief. “No…not really. It’s scary as fuck, so part of me worried…but not with you. I know you’re not a homophobe. I just… Tonight I was kissing her, and she was kissing me, and I opened my fucking mouth and asked her out. I don’t know why I did that because in my head, I was thinking, I don’t like you, I don’t like girls, I wish you were a dude. And now I’m so fucking pissed at myself. I don’t want to play with someone’s feelings. I’m gay. So what? I don’t do this…this feeling insecure.”
He did, though. Just didn’t like anyone to know it.
I found a way to get up, walked over, and sat beside him. “I’m glad you feel comfortable telling me. And whatever you need, I got your back. When you’re ready to come out, I’ll stand by your side when you do. Mom and Dad, they won’t care.” Our parents weren’t like that. They didn’t have a hateful bone in their bodies.
“I know. And I still can’t figure out how you do that, call him Dad.”
I shrugged. “I love my dad, and he’ll always be my father, but he’s gone. Timothy is a good guy.” I knew it was harder for Isaac. That he couldn’t call Mom by anything other than Helena. That didn’t mean he didn’t love her, because he did. Isaac was just built differently than me. “He’s my dad, and you’re my brother. We’re family.”
He flinched and looked away.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
I’d probably made him feel bad about the mom/dad thing. Isaac also didn’t call me his brother as much as I did him, even though I knew how much he cared about me.
“I thought you might be too…gay or whatever. That you would tell me when I told you.”
“Oh.” I felt bad, like I was letting him down, like I’d failed some test. “I’m sorry. I might not have kissed a girl yet, but I know I want to.”
“You could be bi. Or once you do it with a girl, you might not like it,” he replied, making my heart break for him. Isaac didn’t want to be in this alone. We didn’t even have any out gay kids at our school, and as far as I knew, he didn’t know any gay people. I didn’t, other than him. I wished I could lie to him, wished I could tell him I felt attraction to guys too, but I just didn’t.
“I don’t think so, Isaac.”
He swiped at his eyes, but I didn’t see any tears there. Isaac shoved to his feet. “Yeah, that was stupid. I don’t know why I even thought that. Gay stepbrothers or whatever. We’re here, we’re queer, and all that jazz. I was hoping you had some guy-on-guy porn recommendations.”
He laughed, but I didn’t. I’d hurt him, and I hated hurting him. It felt like breaking my own heart when I did. “I’m sorry.”
He turned toward the window. “That’s dumb. You don’t have to be sorry about being straight. I’m just being a drunk idiot tonight. I’m gonna do it, though. I’m gonna come out. I’ll break up with Emma first. God, I feel like shit about that. And I’ll tell Helena and Dad, then wait a few weeks or so before I do it at school. I’m not fucking hiding. I’m not weak.”
My pulse was going too fast for some reason. My chest was heavy. It all felt like it was happening too fast, like it would somehow make me lose Isaac. “Not coming out doesn’t make you weak. I’m sure it’s scary. You don’t have to rush.”
“I know. I just… Fuck it. Why hide? Anyway, I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Isaac, wait.” I stood, but he ignored me, ran down the stairs and out the attic door.
I fell back onto the couch, knowing I’d let him down. He was scared and hurt and sad. I wished I knew how to fix it. I would support him, keep being his best friend, his brother, and make sure he always knew he was loved.
I grabbed my notebook and pencil again, drew Isaac from memory, thought about what he said.
I didn’t get much sleep that night.
He broke up with Emma the next day.
He told our parents he was gay afterward—without me there. It was silly, but I felt hurt, like he didn’t need me. They sat me down later that day, Isaac having left, and told me, not realizing I knew. “We thought it was important to share this with you,” Mom said. “Isaac said we can tell you.”
He’d pretended he hadn’t told me? Clearly, he had, so I did too. “Okay. I support him, no matter what.”
“That’s my boy.” Mom smiled. “Nothing has changed. He’s still our same Isaac. We’re family, and that’s all that matters, just like I told him.” She hugged me, and I nodded in agreement, feeling…weird. I couldn’t put my finger on why.
A month later he started telling his friends, and because this was Isaac, the guy everyone loved, the most popular boy in school, no one cared. If it had been me, things would have gone differently.
But I hadn’t been lying. I wasn’t attracted to guys, so I couldn’t be gay.
Isaac
Eighteen years old
What did one do when they were a brother-loving weirdo? I’d been asking myself that question for years. Sure, Lane and I didn’t share blood, but for all intents and purposes, we were brothers. We called each other brother, introduced each other to people as brothers. Our parents considered us brothers. He called my father Dad. We had family reunions with our extended relatives and took family pictures. We sat at the table for dinner together every night, talking about our days, planning vacations, and…I was maybe a little obsessed with him, which was weird, wasn’t it?
I didn’t know what it was about Lane. It wasn’t long after he’d moved in that I knew he was different, and not in the way I thought at first. Yeah, he was quirky and artsy and didn’t care what people thought. Those weren’t the things I was talking about.
It was the way he saw me, really saw me, when no one else did. The way he’d ask me if I was okay, when everyone else assumed I always was. How he’d told me I’d taken a back seat to my dad’s pain and buried my own. I mean, who the fuck talked like that at fourteen? Fifteen? But Lane had, and it felt…good.
I never had to be physically alone if I didn’t want to be. I was always busy with friends or involved in activities, but I’d felt emotionally lonely every day after Mom died, and maybe even before that. The only time I didn’t was—